Are you a writer seeking to get published? Whether already published or this is your first attempt at getting published, then Submittable is a tool you need to help you accomplish those goals.
When I submit to literary magazines, I wait for their emails of acceptance and sometimes it gets buried in my inbox .
After months of waiting for a response from a literary journal, it is a rejection email.
In other days, I don’t get any email. I am confused whether to go on and submit elsewhere. Should I take prolonged delayed response as a rejection?
In this blog post, I will share a tool or website that makes submission easy.
Help to manage your many submissions in one place.
Let’s begin
What is Submittable?
Submittable is a submission manager that helps magazines accept submission to their magazines.
It also helps submitters manage their submission. Give them the progress of their submission at a glance.
Whether they have been accepted or rejected. It also makes withdrawal of submission easy .
Let’s say you do simultaneous submission and you got accepted in one magazine withdrawing your work is easy compared to other means.
Submittable is used by eleven thousand organisations to collect and manage submissions. It is used by prestigious magazines like Granta to accept poetry and prose submissions.
Here is a video from submittable.
Among the many things it is used for include :
- Manage grants
- Scholarships application and review
- Awards programs
- Fellowships
- Corporate Giving
- Do publishing
Literary journals, magazines, book publishers, university presses, websites and blogs use Submittable
How much does Submittable cost?
Submittable is completely free for writers to submit. Using Submittable for submission it’s free for submitters and applicant’s. They charge only the magazines and organisation accepting submission for using the service .
There are no hidden charges except you are submitting to literary magazines that charge a submission fee .
You will talk of pricing if you are a publisher seeking to use Submittable for accepting and managing submissions.
Submittable signup
Although you can find magazines to submit to using Submittable without signing up. You won’t be able to use it to submit and manage your submission without signing up.
To sign up, go to submittable.com scroll down to the bottom where it says for applicants
Another way is to go directly to the sign-up page by clicking on this link below
Submittable Discover
It is a feature that helps you find a market for your poems, short stories, etc.
On the page you have a search bar which you can use to find magazines, grants , contests, etc
To use the search type in a search term like poetry and it will bring out the list of literary magazines accepting poetry submissions
Filter
You can also filter out in four ways
Following
These are magazines that you already follow. You have searched them and followed on any future update from the magazine on things on when they open submissions, etc.
No fee
You use this to weed out magazines that charge submission fees to read your work. If you don’t want to pay to submit your work.
Deadlines
For places with upcoming deadlines
No Deadlines
If you are looking for magazines that accept submissions, all year round.
Save
When you see a magazine you like you can click through to see more details on the literary magazine’s submission guidelines.
If you like to submit to the magazines, you can save the magazine and it will be added to your list of saved magazines for future reference.
Maybe you looking for magazines you want to write for you can save them and come back to submit to them.
You can also save without clicking through by clicking on save by the side of the magazine.
Follow
If when you found a magazine you love to submit to but their deadline for accepting submission has passed you can follow the magazine to get future updates when they are open for submission.
I used to do this manually noting magazines before I found Submittable, but they somehow get cluttered and I forget all about them because I bury them in a notebook with no organisation.
Aside from that magazines sometimes change dates of accepting submissions. Either way, you get notified when they are accepting submissions.
Label
Beside every search result on Submittable is a save, follow and label (tag). What I love about this feature is that it is a “clutter saver”.
When you start following and saving magazines for future reference, you are currently doing the work to see if the magazine is right for you .
Trust me a month from now, depending on how large your list of saved magazines. You might have trouble remembering what is what.
Let’s say you write poetry. You searched for magazines, accepting poetry. While you searched you found out that some magazines accept nature poems, others accept general submissions while some are looking for speculative poetry.
I found some magazines accepting only poems about women .
Using the label feature would save you the confusion and help you organise the magazines.
I can label poetry magazines as poetry if I also have short stories magazines I want to submit to.
I can also drill down by adding labels like sci-fi poetry, Animal poetry, etc .
It all depends on what works for you.
Navigating Submittable
When you are logged in, click on the menu, you get a drop-down menu of these items.
Submissions
Discover
Saved
Following
Submittable submission.
When you find a magazine, you love to submit to click on the magazine .
You can either visit the website by clicking on the drop-down arrow. It will show you the options to either follow, visit website or view opportunities.
Below the drop-down menu is the submit or save option.
Click on submit to submit .
Take note that each magazine can customize their form depending on what you are submitting .
You are asked to fill in personal details like address, city, country and phone.
After submitting this, it will take you to the form where you are asked to fill in details about the work you are submitting. Title, Cover letter and upload file in doc, docx, etc. It depends on what the magazines accept.
You are asked to upload a file, either doc or docx file .
Progress bar
In this section, you get to see your submissions and the different progress bars .
You can sort by date of submission
You can use the different progress bar in Submittable to sort your submissions and know their current progress
Active
This is a submission that is still considered by the magazines .
It means your work is in progress.
It has not been rejected but has been received.
Accepted
This is work that has been considered and chosen for publication by a magazine
Declined
This is a work that has been rejected. This is the end of the cycle. It has been considered but rejected. You are free to submit elsewhere.
Withdrawn
This means any submitted work that you have removed from consideration by a magazine.
Some reasons for withdrawal of submission includes
Acceptance elsewhere
For revision
Saved draft
When you chose to submit to a magazine, it takes you to the submission form. You can fill the form and save it as a draft to be sent on a later date
Collaborator
If you are submitting a work that is made by collaborating with others, .They will show here.
Submittable setting
You can use the site map to get here
Update profile
You can update your profile
Change your first name , last name,
Cover letter
This will automatically appear in submissions that requires a cover letter
Submittable is a tool that makes submitting easier for me.
Conclusions
It saves time and keeps all your submission and research organised. It also makes withdrawal of your submission easy.
Have you been using Submittable? What have you been submitting? Let me know in the comments.
